The F-15 flown into the Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex by a fighter wing commander has reached the half-way point in its programmed depot maintenance regimen.

As a gesture of thanks to the team that keeps his unit’s fighter planes flying, Col. Christopher Sage, commander of the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C., personally piloted the F-15E into Robins on Nov. 30.

A memorable moment during the veteran pilot’s visit was having his photograph taken in front of an F-15 stripped down to a “cigar” – de-painted and de-winged for PDM.

That is the state his Eagle reached as of last week. Standing next to the fuselage in Bldg. 47 on Feb. 16, 1st Lt. Matt Treptau, operations officer for the 561st Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, said the aircraft was in its fifteenth day in the repair gate — typically a 21-day stop along the PDM path for an F-15.

“This gate,” he said, “this is really the reason (aircraft) come to the depot.”

The entire F-15 PDM process takes an average of 135 days, Treptau said. The complex team aims to trim that to 88 days.

The gates an F-15 passes through during PDM include in-processing, inspection, repair, buildup and operations check, and functional test flight.